Excerpt:
Before diving into why, let's define terms. ESG is not sustainability. ESG - the acronym stands for environmental, social, and governance - has been mostly focused on screeng companies as investments, largely by understandng how a business is affected by environmental and social issues (with an additional focus on whether a company has good governance in place to manage those risks and pressures). Sustainability is a much broader idea, focusing on a company's role in society, how it creates value by managing its environmental and social impacts (both positive and negative), and how its actions affect a wide range of stakeholders.
...Sustainability is good business, and the forces driving it are not going away. The real work of sustainability - not just filling out endless ESG quiestionnaires - will continue. Companies pursuing a sustainability strategy will working toward zero carbon, addressing human rights issues in their supply chains, innovating products and services to satisfy customers that want more sustainable options, engaging employees and other stakeholders in the mission and purpose of the company, partnering with peers on shared problems, and much more.